The Look-Alike Bride (Crimson Romance) Read Free

too,” Leonie grumbled. “She’s an even bigger sucker for good-looking dogs than I am.” She opened the door and followed him outside. “That’s a compliment, in case you didn’t notice.”
    Leonie walked toward the lake with her dog beside her, thinking hard. Assuming Adam Silverthorne visited the area while she was there, Leonie decided she better leave him off her list of men suitable for a fling.
    Unless, of course, Zara would appreciate having Leonie do the hard work of attracting him. Leonie grinned at the thought, knowing full well that if Adam Silverthorne ignored Zara, he certainly wasn’t going to give her younger sister a second glance.
    Butch clearly found the forest-surrounded lake fascinating, but he was a well-mannered dog and remained close to Leonie’s side in spite of the peculiar way she chuckled to herself.
    Zara’s lakeside cabin fronted Lake Ouachita in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, near Hot Springs. Why Arkansas, Leonie didn’t know. She’d have thought her sister would prefer a cabin in Aspen or beside Lake Tahoe where there were lots of men and activities. But Zara claimed to love her Arkansas hideaway, even though she rarely spent any time there. Recently, Leonie had begun to suspect the cabin had been bought for some other purpose, probably something to do with Zara’s job. Or maybe even to chase this Adam Silverthorne, she thought, grinning to herself.
    Leonie walked to the shore of the lake and peered out over the shining waters. Lake Ouachita sat amid rolling Ozark foothills covered with trees and studded with quartz deposits that contained big crystals. Perhaps she’d go on a hike in search of quartz crystals, but not in these shoes.
    She walked out on the narrow, wooden pier that extended about twenty feet into the lake and bent to test the water with one hand. It felt warm, just right in fact. She would take a swim later so she could stay in shape.
    Butch showed no interest in the water or the pier. He remained firmly on shore, watching her anxiously.
    “You aren’t scared of water, are you?” she asked.
    He ignored the gently lapping water and stayed at the end of the pier despite her coaxing.
    She ambled back to shore, stroked the dog’s head, and turned toward the forested area that lay behind Zara’s cabin. “I don’t blame you. After all, you aren’t a Labrador retriever.”
    The woods were green, cool, and full of interesting, well-marked trails. The middle trail, according to Zara, led through the woods to a set of cabins that fronted another cove of the big lake, one of which belonged to Adam Silverthorne’s family. She might as well familiarize herself with one of the other trails. Then she and Butch could head back to the cabin for a well-deserved lunch and afternoon nap.
    The United States Government was paying the rent on her Houston apartment for the next two months. That would help, but Leonie knew she needed to be searching for a job. School would start again in two months, and all the available openings for high school P.E. teachers would be filled by the time she started looking.
    That would be just her luck. Perhaps she should demand that the government guarantee her a good job the next time she filled in for Zara.
    “You’d better gain all the weight you can, boy,” she said. “If I don’t get a job lined up, we may both find ourselves on weight-loss diets we don’t need.”
    With all the free time available, maybe she could take a crafts class. She brightened. As soon as she got back to the cabin, she would investigate. Perhaps she could learn a craft and become a flea market entrepreneur if she failed to find a teaching job.
    What could it hurt to try?
    • • •
    Adam Silverthorne congratulated himself as he stepped out of his brother’s lakeside cabin and headed for the woods. He had finally chosen a time to visit when Zara Daniel wasn’t lying in wait in the next cabin over. If she’d been there, she’d be knocking on his door right